Unfinished

Eric Greitens has lost his Senate bid and a lot of Republicans are reported to be glad that his populist appeal finally has worn out. His opponents and news reports, and his own commercials, made it clear there was not a “new” Greitens who had changed from the scandal-plagued collapse of his career as governor and rising Republican star.

Is he finished politically now?  Will we never see his name on a ballot again?  Will we never again see a Greitens with a gun political commercial?

In politics it is advisable to use the word “never” with care.  Case in point: November 7, 1962.

Richard Nixon, who lost the 1960 presidential race to John Kennedy, challenged incumbent California Governor Pat Brown’s re-election two years later. He had lost the day before. And on November 7, in a press conference, Nixon blamed the press for his defeat and declared that reporters would miss him because, “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.”   The general consensus among the political punditry was that Nixon’s political career was over. We know how that turned out.

That brings us to another story—

Lucy Mercer Ruthefurd, the mistress of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, told her friend, artist Elizabeth Shoumatoff in 1943 that she should paint a portrait of her lover because, “He has such a remarkable face. There is no painting of him that gives his true expression.”

It was not until April, 1945 that Ruthefurd was able to arrange a two-day sitting by the President for his portrait.

About noon on April 12, 1945, President Roosevelt sat for the official portrait. As Shoumatoff was working her watercolor and Roosevelt was having lunch, he complained, “I have a terrific pain I the back of my head,” and slumped in his chair, unconscious. He died that afternoon from a stroke.

Shoumatoff never finished that portrait.

The political portrait of Eric Greitens remains incomplete after this defeat. He’s only 48.  Nixon was 49 when he held his “last” press conference.

For now, however, “never” might be too soon for Eric Greitens to think he has a political future in Missouri.

Sports: Racing–INDYCAR, NASCAR TRIPLE-HEADER AT BRICKYARD 

by Bob Priddy, Missourinet contributing editor

(Indianapolis)—–Whether you prefer them with or without fenders, you had your choice at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway during the weekend.  INDYCAR’s Alexander Rossi broke a three-year, 49-race winless streak and Tyler Reddick won for the second time this year in the NASCAR Cup series.  A.J. Almendinger caught the checkers in the Xfinity race, NASCAR’s  Cup feeder series.

Rossi, who called his INDYCAR win “a relief,” had been so frustrated by his long victory drought, announced earlier this year that he was leaving Andretti Autosport for Arrows McLaren in 2023.  He started P2 next to possible future teammate Felix Rosenqvist, and was running second to Colton Herta when Herta had a major mechanical failure after running over one of the course’s curbs near the halfway point.

The win is number eight for Rossi (right) in INDYCAR since joining Andretti Autosports in 2016 after a five-race mediocre career in Formula 1, and winning the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500 as a rookie.

He said his lack of victories in the last two-plus seasons caused him to push “reset” on his career—the reason he has signed to drive for Arrows McLaren next year.

Rookie Christian Lundgaard finished 3.5 seconds back. Will Power’s third-place finish gave him the series points lead over Indianapolis 500 winner Marcus Ericsson, who rallied from his dead-last starting position 11th in the 25-car field.  Power now leads Ericsson by nine points.

Power’s Penske teammates Scott McLaughlin and Josef Newgarden finished fourth and fifth.  Newgarden’s participation in the race had been in doubt until practice on Friday because of his crash the weekend before in Iowa and his later collapse in the hauler area after that race. He was tentatively cleared to practice and after the practice session was cleared to drive in Saturday’s race.

INDYCAR races next week on the streets of Nashville.

(NASCAR)—Tyler Reddick had the NASCAR race at the Brickyard under control before a series of last-segment incidents added drama to a race already marked by on-track bumping and off-track adventures.

The race was forced into overtime when several cars tangled on the first turn of the next-to-last scheduled lap, with one car mired in the gravel and unable to continue.  On the restart, Ross Chastain challenged Reddick for the lead on the first turn, found the track too crowded, and took an access road instead of the regular course turn. He briefly led Reddick, who regained the top spot before completing the lap.

The move backfired on Chastain, who crossed the finish second but was hit by NASCAR with a 30-second penalty that left him 27th in the final standings.  The wild scramble at the end left rookie Austin Cindric as the runner-up.  Harrison Burton came home third, followed by Todd Gilliland and Bubba Wallace. The results were career bests for Burton and Gilliland, and with Cindric, it marked the first time in 28 years that three rookies have been in the top five at the end of a Cup race (one of the three rookies that finished in the top five at Pocono in 1994 was Ward Burton, Harrison’s father. His uncle Jeff, now a NASCAR television analyst, was one of the others, joined by Joe Nemechek.

NASCAR  takes its show to Brooklyn, Michigan next weekend.

(FORMULA 1)—Max Verstappen survived a spin and won the Grand Prix of Hungary. In the process he built his points lead to 98 over Charles Leclerc, who started from pole and thought he had a shot at the win until a poor tire choice during a pit stop left him unable to keep up. He finished sixth.

Pole-sitter George Russell of Mercedes finished third with Russell’s teammate, Lewis Hamilton, between the two.

Formula 1 takes its summer break this month and won’t resume racing until the Belgian Grand Prix on August 28.

(Photo credits: Rick Gevers and Bob Priddy)

Notes From a Quiet Street

It’s baseball season.  And baseball is a great radio sport.

As Jack Buck put it when he was inducted ins the Radiio Hall of Fame in 1995:

“Turn the radio on. You’ll hear a friend. You will enjoy; you will learn; you will imagine; you will improve.

“Turn the radio on, at home, in your car, in prison, on the beach, in a nursing home.  You will not be alone; you will not be lonely.

“Newspapers fold. Magazines come and go. Television self-destructs.

“Radio remains the trusted common denominator in this nation.”

Or as others have said, in various forms: “Theatre is life; film is art; television is furniture; radio is imagination.”

Perfect for baseball.

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I Read.  I write.  I am an author.  A library tells me much about a town and its people.  I’ve been on various local and regional library boards for 14 years and counting. That’s why this sign was interesting:

Of course, I saw this sign on the internet.

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We keep hearing critics of the January 6 Committee refer to it as a Kangaroo Court.  Do they consider another form of investigation a Kangaroo Grand Jury?

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Your faithful correspondent has, for the last two cars he has bought, suggested, “This might be the last entirely gas-powered car I’ll buy.”  But we’re getting closer to where that statement will true. When grandchildren live in Colorado, a car that gets 250  miles before needing a charge doesn’t make the navel tingle.

But this one does. It’s the Mercedes EQ/XX, still in prototype stage. Mercedeces ranks its range at 747 miles. Might have to mortgage the house, twice, but when it goes into production, it might not be too hard to tell the grandchildren their inheritance is greatly diminished.  It even has solar panels on the roof to power some of the little things inside.

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We have heard our most recent ex-president say at least a couple of times, including last week, that he wanted to give himself the Medal of Honor but Congress wouldn’t let him do it.

Should he ever read one of these postings (and there are some serious suspicions in this lofty place that he reads much of anything), here is how the Medal of Honor is awarded.

The main way is through nomination and approval through the military chain of command.  The second is a nomination by a member of Congress who is usually acting on a constituent’s request.  The medal is general presented by the President, in the name of Congress.

A year ago about now, I was honored to work with some veterans and with Gold Star Families to put up a monument to those families that have lost loved ones during wartime. I cherish the opportunity to have been part of that effort.

The ex-president’s remark is an insult to those who deservedly have received Medal of Honor—-or to the families of those who did not live to know they would receive it. Actually, it is an insult to anyone who has ever worn our country’s uniforms.

In fact the first time he joked about that was at an AMVETS meeting a couple of years ago and he embroidered his poorly-read remarks by kidding Woody Williams about them.

Woody Williams died a few weeks ago. He was the last surviving WWII Medal of Honor winner.  It was his foundation that supported last year’s efforts to put up the Gold Star Families Memorial Monument near the Missouri Capitol.

Our ex-president might have thought he was being funny. I am ashamed of those who laughed or applauded.

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And finally, another observation about baseball:

You faithful observer has seen a new book that says “Bull Durham” is the greatest sports movie ever made. It is difficult from this recliner chair next to the TV remote to disagree.  Part of one of Hollywood’s greatest movie scripts is when Crash explains to Nuke how to use all of the great baseball clichés.

We suggest, however, that there are two baseball clichés that need to be thrown on the ash heap of baseball cliché history.

After watching  the Kansas City Royals and the St. Louis Cardinals leave some of their players behind, including some of the bigger names of both teams, when they went to Canada recently because they had not been vaccinated, we suggest these two clichés be discarded:

Take one for the Team.

There is no “I” in Team.

Maybe the Royals and the Cardinals need something we find supporting our high school sports.

Booster Clubs.

 

Sports: Racing—Poke-Oh-No! for NASCAR by Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(NASCAR)—Denny Hamlin’s weekend win at Pocono was historic and so was Kyle Busch’s second-place finish.  Historically bad, that is.  Or potentially historically bad.

As this is written, Hamlin and Busch join a part of NASCAR history that includes Joe Weatherly, Jim Reed, and Emanuel Zervakis and dates back to 1955.

The cars of Hamlin and Busch failed post-race inspections, causing NASCAR to disqualify them and give third-place finisher Chase Elliott his fourth win of the season.  NASCAR says their cars had some improper material on the front fascia that affected the aerodynamics of their cars. Both cars were taken to the NASCAR tech center for additional examination.

The last time a victory was taken away from a NASCAR winner was the spring of 1960 when the car of Emanuel Zervakis had a gas tank that was too big.  The last time the top two finishers were disqualified was 1955 when Joe Weatherly and Jim Reed finished 1-2 but were disqualified, Weatherly for an illegal camshaft and reed for illegal valves.  The win was given to Herb Thomas, who finished third.

Elliott thus joins Thomas in the history books as a third-place race winner and appears to be the first driver to win a NASCAR race without leading a lap.

Hamlin and Busch both drive for Joe Gibbs Racing.

NASCAR races on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course next Sunday as part of the NACAR/INDYCAR doubleheader weekend.

(INDYCAR)—Josef Newgarden’s status for next Saturday’s road course race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is unknown as this is written.  He was taken to a hospital in Des Moines Sunday evening after collapsing in the motorhome parking lot at the Iowa Speedway.  Newgarden, who won Saturday’s race, dominated the race on Sunday until a broken suspension sent his car hard into the wall. He cleared all tests at the infield care center but was taken by helicopter to De Moines after he fell in the parking lot and suffered a cut to the back of his head.

Team Penske later said all scans at the hospital were negative and Newgarden would be released Monday morning.

INDYCAR medical personnel will re-evaluate him in Indianapolis on Thursday to determine if he can race next weekend.

Newgarden led 208 of the 250-lap race on Saturday, finishing six seconds in front of Pato O’Ward.  He led 148 of the first 235 laps on Sunday before crashing. O’Ward won the race over Will Power.

Former NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson had the best finish of his two-year INDYCAR career.  He came home fifth in the Sunday race.

(FORMULA 1)—Max Verstappen picked up his seventh win of the year, thanks somewhat to Ferrari driver Charles LeClerc’s crash while leading.  Lewis Hamilton finished second in his Mercedes, followed by teammate George Russell.

(SRX)—Marco Andretti at last has won another championship.  Andretti, whose father and grandfather had won INDYCAR titles in their careers (and grandfather Mario won the 1969 Indianapolis 500), won the title in this summer’s Superstar Racing Experience—-and did it with a broken wrist.

His last championship was the Skip Barber Racing School championship in 2004, when he was 17 and learning to compete in big-time racing..

Andretti and former NASCAR Cup driver Ryan Newman went into the race leading the six-race series in points. They started the final race in mid-pack, collided on a restart but Newman wasn’t able to finish far enough ahead of Andretti to take the championship. Newman finished 8th and Andretti 9th.

Andretti said after the race he had broken his wrist when he got his thumb caught in the steering wheel during a collision. But he said it was painful for just “a couple of laps.”

The last race of the year was won by Chase Elliott, who became the first driver other than series co-founder Tony Stewart to win an SRX race on dirt.  The final race was held at the Sharon Speedway in Hartford, Ohio.

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Two Popes and Christian Nationalism 

A movement called “Christian Nationalism” is called “a fundamental threat to Democracy” in a new book, The Flag and the Cross by Phillip S. Gorski and Samuel L. Perry.  When Gorski was interviewed by Sarah Jones for the online British newspaper, The Independent, about the book defining Christian Nationalists as people who “often have a completely incorrect understanding of American history.”  She asked, “Can you talk about what myths tend to be attractive to them and why?”

Gorski responded, “Because it puts people like them at the center of the American story and it puts the American story at the center of the cosmic drama. White Christians like us are the real Americans, and America is the exceptional nation, the chosen nation that is playing a special role in the battle between good and evil…I would add to this that if you think in terms of this narrative, if you’re a white Christian, it doesn’t matter when you showed up in the United States; you have a kind of a birthright. You belong. You were always here, in a sense…You’re part of the founding group.

“I always find this kind of ironic when you think about the folks who get sort of exercised about discussions of race and reject “The 1619 Project.”  Why do they get so exercised about this? In part because it threatens their central place in the story and makes clear that in some sense you’re really talking about who got here first.”

Perry continues, “There is this huge identify-based motivation to believe these myths about America’s past that are factually incorrect oftentimes…A lot of people in these communities are socialized into believing it because there is an entire Christian nationalism industrial complex that is built to continue to perpetuate those myths.”

He says the goal of that “complex” is to “either provide religious leaders with that kind of ammunition or to provide religious consumers, people in the pews, with information about America’s Christian past that may or may not be factually correct. It is designed…to center white Christian Americans within that story and to tell them that this nation was founded on Christian values for Christian people…And, of course, they get to decide what that means.”

(You can read the entire interview at: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/06/white-christian-nationalism-is-a-threat-to-democracy.html)

This movement has been a thousand years in the making. And, to the considerable discomfort (I hope) of those who promote a distortion of our history by claiming our country was founded as a Christian nation, we’re going to tell you about the ancient roots of this misguided movement. In doing so, we hope some readers will ask if the “Christian nation” of the early settlers is the kind of Christianity we should practice today, or honor in our politics and policy-making.

The beginning of the “White Christian America” myth is based on a corruption of the Great Command in the Biblical book of Matthew in which Jesus told his disciples to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”

Pope Urban II was the first to twist this command into what became known as the “Doctrine of Discovery.”  Urban led the Roman Church from 1088 until he died in 1099. He is credited with triggering the First Crusade by declaring war on all non-Chistian nations and promising absolution to those who fought to take Spain and the Holy Land back from the Muslims. For about four centuries, this doctrine was considered authorization by European kings to “discover” new lands and if they were considered non-Christian, to claim them

The real Doctrine of Discovery that shaped our nation and much of our national self-image came from the Papal Bull Romanus Pontifex of 1452 by Pope Nicholas V that extended Urban’s idea to sanction war against non-Christians throughout the world. It also sanctioned conquest of those nations.

The Boston-based Upstander Project (which says, “An upstander is a person who takes action in defense of those who are targeted for systemic or individual harm or injustice. An upstander is the opposite of a bystander.”) says these decrees are based on two assertions:

“First, Christians were the only civilized peoples and thus, they had the right to treat non-Christians as uncivilized and subhuman who had no rights to any land or nation.

“Second, Christians had the God-given right to ‘capture, vanquish, and subdue the Saracens, pagans and other enemies of Christ,’ to ‘put them into perpetual slavery’ and ‘to take all their possessions and property.’”

Portugal, a rival of Spain’s in exploration at that time, protested Nicholas’ Bull that seemed to grant exclusivity to Spain because Portugal already had seized North Africa as early as 1415 and had explored coastal Africa all the way to India.  Pope Alexander, in 1493, issued a new Papal Bull forbidding Spain from establishing control over lands claimed by other “Christian lords,” effectively drawing a line between hemispheres.  That wasn’t good enough for King John II of Portugal, who negotiated with Columbus’s friends Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, to move the line further west with the Treaty of Tordesillas, clearing the way for the Portugese to claim Brazil.

Alexander’s division line wasn’t just in the Atlantic. It went all the way around the world. A later treaty between Spain and Portugal, The Treaty of Saragossa, gave Spain and Portugal the power to seize and control all non-Christian nations on the Earth just by stepping off a boat onto those lands.

Of course, other nations had other ideas—the French and the English in particular and in years to come, the English especially recognized no papal authority.  And this is where our country’s history begins to take shape.

The concepts of these papal statements influenced the sentiments of European settlement of what is now the United States and laid the groundwork for the erroneous attitude that Christianity should be the motivation behind public policy.

It is the Doctrine of Discovery that enabled European settlers to look upon well-organized Native American socieities as inferior because they were not “Christian” regardless of how those societies interpreted God or what they called God. Since they were inferior, they had no right to the lands they had inhabited for thousands of years if Christians wanted it.

It didn’t take long for the presumptuous, righteous, Europeans to push things too far.  King Phillip’s war broke out in New England in 1675 between the son of Massasoit—the friend of the Pilgrims—who resisted colonists’ grab of his land. The war lasted until 1678 when it ended with the Treaty of Casco Bay. But the settlers did not stop doing the things that led to the war. Another treaty in 1703 also was violated by the settlers.

And so it went, decade by decade, treaty by broken treaty, as the Christian Europeans seized the heathen lands they wanted.

The Louisiana Purchase represents the Doctrine of Discovery for we Missourians.  France had taken “ownership” of that territory from Spain and sold it to the United States. But Fance and Spain only “claimed” the land under the doctrine. They did not own it.  The United States really bought “preemptive rights” to obtain the land within that territy from the tribes, either by treaty or by conquest.

Missouri?  Harvard University’s first tenured professor of American Indian history, Phillip deLoria, told interviewer David Rubenstein in 2020 that the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 established requirements for western territories to become states: “Sixty-thousand free people. What that means is if you’re a territory and you want to become a state, youneed to get your Indian people out fo there so that you can bring in more settlers. What that leads to is either removal—making them leave the state—or moving them onto reservation territories where they’re contained and compressed.”  Missouri is a perfect example.*

Historian Greg Olson has written that it took 22 treaties with 13 Native American nations before the United States had clear title to all of the land in Missouri, a process that was finally concluded in 1837, sixteen years after we became a state, with the Platte Purchase that gave us our northwest corner. .

The national attitude was encapsulated in an 1823 U. S. Supreme Court unanimous ruling that the Age of Discovery had given the Christian nations of Europe “ultimate dominion” over all of North America, that Native Americans no longer had any right to “complete sovereignty, as independent nations” and were only entitled to occupy their lands. Chief Justice John Marshall’s opinion said that when this country became an independent nation, it kept Britain’s right of discovery and gained Britain’s power of “dominion.”

The Doctrine of Discovery was carried out until European Christians’ North American empire stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific based on papal bulls declaring Christians are the only civilized peoples and therefore have a God-given right to “capture, vanquish, and subdue….enemies of Christ” and to put them into “perpetual slavery” and to “take all their possessions and property.”

The papal bulls of the Popes were Americanized in an editorial in the United States Magazine and Democratic Review editorial of July/August, 1845 calling for an end to opposition, especially from England and France, to the annexation of Texas.

” Why, were other reasoning wanting, in favor of now elevating this question of the reception of Texas into the Union, out of the lower region of our past party dissensions, up to its proper level of a high and broad nationality, it surely is to be found, found abundantly, in the manner in which other nations have undertaken to intrude themselves into it, between us and the proper parties to the case, in a spirit of hostile interference against us, for the avowed object of thwarting our policy and hampering our power, limiting our greatness and checking the fulfillment of our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.”

(Emanuel Leutze, “Westward, the Course of Empire”)

It is disputed whether editor John O’Sullivan or staff member Jane Cazneau wrote that editorial.  The phrase showed up in a December issue of the New York Morning News, also edited by O’Sullivan, advocating American annexation of the Oregon Territory.

Mainfest Destiny, America’s version of Europe’s sanctified Christian Naionalism,  proclaimed it was ordained by God that this nation had a right to displace non-European residents so the “yearly multiplying millions” had land and livelihood of their own. It led to the Mexican War that added all or parts of Arizona, Californa, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming to our country’s map. With the addition of those new territories, the concept also raised the issue of expansion of slavery into these new areas, an issue that ultimately led to civil war.

Those are things the nationalists prefer we not know, teach, or learn because—going back to the top of this entry, Christians are the only civilized people and as such they can treat others “as uncivilized and subhuman” with no rights to any land or nation.

White Christian Nationalism is not new and it is not unique to our country, nor is it unique to Christians.  Its advocates prefer that neither our school children nor their parents know where it came from and what it has done here and in other parts of the world.

Sadly, there are too many Christians who think White Christian Nationalists will go away.  They won’t.  They’ve been here for more than four centuries and they’re louder than ever, it seems.

So we are presented with a choice: What would you rather be, a Christian living in a free country or someone living in a Christian country—where history tells us we might not be considered a citizen at all?

*David M. Rubenstein, The American Experiment: Dialogues on a Dream, New York, Simon & Schuster, 2021.

Greg Olson, “White Man’s Paper Trail: Extinguishing Indigenous Land Claims in Missouri, Missouri Historical Review, July, 2021

The Fifth Amendment Debt 

It is possible  Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, John Eastman, Alex Jones, Allen Weisselberg and two Trumps have no idea who John Lilburne was.  But they owe a large debt to this Englishman who died in 1657.

Trump aides, advisers, and defenders Stone, Flynn, Eastman, Jones and Weisselberg have “taken the Fifth” when summoned to testify on this or that issue involving our most recent former President.

Indeed, DJ Jr., the son of the aforesaid former president, reportedly has done it more than 500 times, as did Weisselberg, the former Trump organization chief financial officer, when summoned to talk about the elder Trump’s reputed manipulation of property values to get loans.

And so, for that matter, has the Big Guy himself. More than thirty years ago when he was carrying on with Marla Maples and his then-wife, Ivana, was divorcing him, DJT was asked about 100 questions about faithful marriage and reportedly pleaded the Fifth Amendment 97 times.  The questions came from his soon to be ex-wife’s lawyer who wanted him to explain his reported dalliances with other women.

But he must have had an epiphany sometime in the next twenty-or so years when he he told a crowd of followers during his campaign, “You see the mob takes the Fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?”

How does John Lilburne enter this unsavory set of circumstances?

Isaac Amon’s article for The Journal of the Missouri Bar a while ago tell us that John Lilburne was an English pamphleteer who was arrested in 1637 for writing things the king and his Star Chamber Court did not like and he was badly punished for it.

The Star Chamber?

It was the court of inquisition in England that was above the common law and answered only to the King.  Those brought before it were ordered to take “the ex officio oath” that promised they would admit charges against them—-before knowing what the charges were.

John Lilburne was arrested in 1637 for printing and circulating unlicensed books. When he was taken before the Court of the Star Chamber and asked how he pleaded, Lilburne refused to respond until he knew the charges against him and argued that he was not bound to incriminate himself. He maintained the oath was “against the law of God and the law of the land.”  He also demanded the right to confront his accusers.

That defiance earned him a sentence in February of 1638 of a £500 fine, imprisonment at the Fleet Street Prison, and to be whipped and pilloried until he obeyed the court. In April he was taken from his cell, his hands were tied to the rear of an oxcart that pulled him through the streets, as he was flogged with a three-tailed whip before he was locked in a stooped position in the pillory.  Even then he spoke loudly against those who sought to silence him—until he was gagged. He was taken back to prison where, despite his situation, he was able to write a pamphlet describing the cruelty of his punishment and another encouraging a separation of the English government fronm the Church of England.

Eventually he was released but he continued to stand for his contention

Lilburne was called “Freeborn John” by his supporters for his contention that citizens have “freeborn rights” that include the right to hear charges against them, to face their accusers, and to refuse to say something that might incriminate themselves.

He was a soldier in the first English Civil War as a “Roundhead,” the Parliamentarians who fought against the Royalists to determine the type of government England would have and to seek religious feedom.  He left the army after rejecting the Presbyterian Solemn League and Covenant, an agreement in which the Scots agreed to help the Parliamentarians if England, Scotland, and Ireland would unite afterwards under a parliamentary-presbyterian system.

Lilburne maintained the covenant was, in effect, an agreement to preserve the religion of Scotland and was therefore a restriction on general freedom of religion. He had no problem with the Scots being Presbyterians but he wanted no part of an agreement that bound others to that faith.

In the end, the Civil Wars of England united England, Scotland and Ireland into the United Kingdom, ended the monopoly on worship and government control held by the Church of England, protected the reform movement in Scotland, and cleared the way for the Protestantism to become established in Ireland, leading to political control under the Anglican Church of Ireland, a situation that led to “The Troubles” or the Northern Ireland conflict, a thirty-year sectarian conflict between Protestant loyalists and Catholic nationalists from 1968-1998. That’s a discussion for another day, perhaps.

John Lilburne was imprisoned again in 1645 for criticizing members of Parliament for living well at a time when English soldiers were poorly treated. While in prison he penned An Agreement of the People for a Firm and Present Peace Upon Grounds of Common Right.

Lilburne’s political activism saw him in and out of prison and even banished from England for a time. In 1657, while visiting his wife (who was expecting their tenth child) on temporary release from prison, he died.

More than three centuries after his death, James Madison, who was influenced by Lilburne’s story, wrote as part of the Bill of Rights, “No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”

The Fifth Amendment and the other nine statements of OUR “freeborn rights” were adopted in 1791.

In 1966, United States Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren specifically mentioned Lilburne in writing the majority opinion for Miranda v. Arizona that police must tell suspects that they have the freeborn right to remain silent in the face of accusations against them.

A few days ago we watched Michael Flynn refuse to answer questions from a Republican member of the January 6 Committee, saying only, “Take the Fifth, “Fifth,” and “The Fifth” in responding to three questions.

A man almost four centuries ago endured imprisonment, whipping, the pillory, and even banishment from his country to give him that right.

But here’s the deal: While it is easy to think those who “plead the Fifth” are therefore hiding their guilt, there is far more to the plea than that. This amendment stands between us and Lilburne’s Star Chamber Court. All of us—you, me, them—are not forced to say something that others might consider an admission of guilt before any charges are filed. This amendment keeps the government from considering you guilty unless you can prove yourself NOT guilty.  This amendment protects our sacred concept that a citizen, no matter how reprehensible we might consider their behavior, is innocent until proven guilty.

We doubt that Mr. Flynn or any of the others we mentioned at the beginning of this piece know about or care about what John Lilburne went through to protect them.

But all of us should care—-because we Americans all have freeborn rights.

(image credit: Library of Congress)

Fun at Pevely; Landmark at Toronto; Tension Increases at New Hampshire

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(SRX at PEVELY)—Tony Stewart has finally won a race at Ken Schrader’s track in Pevely, Missouri.  Stewart won the main second heat and the main event to become the first driver to win twice this year on the Superstar Racing Experience (SRX) circuit.

The race was the first of the season or a dirt oval after four races on pavement.

Behind Stewart, several competitors finished with major parts of their cars in twisted piles in the pits, the result of ten cautions for track incidents in the 70-lap final.  Marco Andretti finished second for the third straight race.

Ryan Newman, who said his most recent experience on dirt was with his tractor on his farm, was fourth followed by track co-owner and NASCAR veteran Ken Schrader. Greg Biffle wrapped up the top five. Michael Waltrip, Ernie Francis Jr., Paul Tracy, Tony Kanaan, Hailie Deegan (the only woman driver in the series), Matt Kenseth, Bobby Labonte and Ryan Hunter-Reay finished out the field. Hunter-Reay, the winner of the 2014 Indianapolis 500, had never raced on a dirt track before.

The series finale will be on dirt next Saturday at Sharon Speedway in Hartford, Ohio, featuring the father-son duo of Dave and Ryan Blaney. Dave Blaney, who had a long career in dirt-track racing, is the cow-owner of the track. His son, Ryan, is a rising star in NASCAR for Penske Racing.

The championship points race has boiled down to a contest between Stewart, Labonte, Andretti, and Newman.

(INDYCAR)—Now only one driver has more INDYCAR wins than Scott Dixon.  Dixon climbed into a tie with Mario Andretti for second-most career victories with 52. It’s unlikely he’ll get to A. J. Foyt’s 67 wins in the series but he has moved closer to the points lead as he looks for his seventh series championship, which would tie Foyt.

 

Dixon pulled away from pole-winner Colton Herta on the last restart twenty laps left and crossed the line eight-tenths of a second ahead, ending a 23-race winless streak, the second-longest of his career.  Felix Rosenqvist, Graham Rahal, this year’s Indianapolis 500 winner, Marcus Ericsson, rounded out the top five.

The win extends Dixon’s record of eighteen seasons with at least one victory. He now has won at least once in 20 seasons, also a record.

Next up for INDYCAR are two races within driving distance of many Missourians.  INDYCAR will have a doubleheader weekend at the Iowa Speedway, a .875-mile high banked oval near Newton, Iowa.  The track was designed by former Missouri NASCAR champion Rusty Wallace. The races will be Saturday afternoon at 4 p.m., and Sunday afternoon at 3.

(NASCAR)—Christopher Bell has upped the stakes for winless NASCAR Cup drivers hoping to make the 16-driver playoff field with his weekend win at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.  Bell became the 14th driver to win a race this year, staying in front for the last 42 laps and pulling away to an almost-six second win over last week’s winner, Chase Elliott.

Bell, who might not be mistaken for someone 27 years old, had to outrun Elliott, the hottest driver in the series in the last four weeks. Elliott has won twice and has finished twice. He had come into the race ranked last among the top 16 drivers but is now guaranteed a playoff slot.

If the race was big for Bell, it was a bitter pill for teammate Martin Truex Jr., to swallow. Truex started from the pole, led 172 of the 301 laps, and won the first two stages. But a two-tire stop with 100 laps left didn’t work out. He dropped to fourth and has replaced Bell as the last driver in the playoff hunt.

Truex is still waiting for his first win of the year, as is Kevin Harvick who is the first driver outside the playoffs. Both former Cup champions have six races left to get a win that could put them into the round of sixteen for a ten-race runoff for the title.  They’ll get their next shot next Sunday at Pocono.

For now, Ryan Blaney, who is third in overall points, has the fifteenth playoff position.  Truex is 37 points behind him for the last slot. Harvick trails Truex by 68 points and appears to need a win to make the top 16.  Harvick is ninth in overall points.

A fifteenth winner who is not one of those three would knock Truex below the cut line with Harvick.

Fourteen different winners in a year is far from the record.  Nineteen different drivers posted victories in 2001.  Eighteen did it in 2002 and 2011.  Seventeen did it in 2013.

(FORMULA 1)—F1 races next in the Grand Prix of France. It’s race 12 of 22 on this year’s schedule.   On the Circuit Paul Ricard, near Marseilles.

(Photo credits:  Stewart—SRX Racing/CBS; Dixon—Rick Gevers at WWTR 2021;Bell—Bob Priddy at WWTR, 2022)

 

Recycle this sign?

Saw this sign on the internet a few days ago:

There are many who harbor this sentiment as we go into the 2022 midterm elections and anticipate the heat and smoke of 2024.  Sad to say, too many of those we voters have put in positions of responsibility who are more interested in staying in positions of power have left too many voters feeling as this property owner felt six years ago.

The sign carries a message of hopelessness.  The present political climate encourages that feeling.

The sign is a message of self-pity at a time when self-pity cannot be allowed.

This sign could be seen, insead, a message of opportunity. A challenge.

The proper response lies within those who think a yard sign such as this is all they can do.

Because it isn’t

Channelled, controlled anger can be a powerful force.  Just make sure it’s directed at eliminating those who would leave us believing this sign is all we can do.  Just make sure the mind overrules the gut in considering the people who want our votes.

And maybe a scattered few will realize they are better than those who have created this climate and they will be replaced by those who represent our better selves.

Lightbulbs and voters have one big thing in common.  Both can be unscrewed.

 

The Chair

It was one of those little mysteries that we notice that stays quietly in the backs of our minds but doesn’t nag at us.  But then somebody says something and the mystery is solved although they don’t know there ever was a mystery.

This mystery is rooted in the story of one of Jefferson City’s most prominent 19th Century citizens, the donation of a building to the city, the founding of a church, and the creation of a center to help the city’s needy a century after a man’s death.

And a mausoleum.

Joseph M. Clarke, Ohio-born, Illinois newspaperman, Alabama horse trader, Osage County Missouri plantation owner, state legislator, and Jefferson City banker is at the center of the story.

He was a city developer and philanthropist and upon his death toward the end of 1889, he bequeathed Bragg Hall to the city.  Bragg Hall still stands at the corner of High and Monroe Streets, on the southwest corner. For decades, the upper floors were city hall, with the city council chambers (which doubled as the Municipal Court during the daytimes) on the top floor.

One of the provisions of his will was that the city had to pay for a life-size bronze statue of Clarke to be kept in the building. Portraits of his wife, Lavinia, and of his two sons, Marcus and Junius, also were to be placed prominently in the building. All of them wound up in the council chambers, the statue in the southeast corner where it watched the council proceedings, the portraits of his sons on the east wall and the life-size portrait of his wife on the west wall.  In those days, five councilmen sat on each side of the room and I always felt sorry for the councilmen on the east because Mrs. Clarke was, well, a very severe looking woman and I often wondered if any of the council members felt her withering gaze.

Bragg Hall became inadequate as a city hall in the 1970s and after negotiations with Clarke descendants, the city sold the building and moved to a new city hall.  But the new building didn’t seem to have adequate space for the bronze Clarke and the canvas family members.  Four years later, when the city opened a nutrition center, it was named for Clark. And today folks who have meals there do so under the watchful eyes of Mr. Clarke and his sons. And I think Lavinia is watching their table manners closely.

One of the other things Clarke did was to give the First Christian Church a lot at the corner of (then) East Main and Adams Street as the site for its first sanctuary, to which he also contributed liberally.

All four members of the Clarke family are in that mausoleum in the old cemetery.  One day while I was doing some church research about Clarke, I went to the mausoleum, the interior of which was pretty dusty and cobwebby and peered through the locked door.  There wasn’t much to see except for a very old chair that was slowly collapsing under the weight of dust and decades.

Why is that chair there? I wondered.  Were they expecting visitors?   Were they thinking someone would come in a sit with them for a while?  Somebody would come in and tell them what had happened with their gifts?

That chair was the mystery that stuck in the back of my mind for several years.  Since then, the mausoleum has undergone a maintenance and repair effort.

A few weeks ago I think I learned what that chair was and why it was there.

The Christian Church has been without a minister for more than a year, a situation that will be resolved this coming Sunday when our new minister preaches his first sermon.  In the interim we have had “pulpit supply” ministers filling in, including three retired ministers who are members of the congregation.  We’ve had sermons from two lay members. And on June 26, a young woman who was raised in our church—her parents and her grandmother are still active members—and then went on to become a minister stood in the pulpit and asked what kind of a church we would be in the future, one stuck in the old ways or “will we accept the mantles of change and embrace our own giftedness and passions?”

Her sermon was based on the story of Elijah, the prophet from the Old Testament Book of Kings where stories of his miracles are told—one of which is resurrection. Early in the message, Sarah Blosser Blackwell referred to an ancient custom that sometimes is practiced in some homes today:

An empty chair at a family gathering was likely referred to in passing as the “Elijah” chair.  The idea was that since Elijah did not die an earthly death, but instead was taken up into heaven, and we should save him a space in case he returned. According to Jewish tradition, Elijah was known as the messenger of the covenant and, thus, was present at every circumcision, so a chair was left open for his arrival.  Later that became the place of honor for the godfather of the child.

And there it was!

That was why the chair was in the Clarke family mausoleum—the Elijah Chair where he could sit when he returns as a harbinger of the arrival of the Messiah.

I don’t think there’s a chair in the mausoleum since the repairs were made. I could see no sign of it as I peered through the three dingy windows.  It’s unknown if the chair had been put there at the request of the Clarkes or if it was just part of a tradition in 1889.

I kind of think there should be a chair in there now, though.

 

Sports—Racing: Elliott wins at home; Leclerc brings it home; Schrader will race at home

By Bob Priddy, Missourinet Contributing Editor

(SRX)—Next up for the Superstar Racing Experience drivers: Ken Schrader’s I-55 Speedway at Pevely, Missouri, the first dirt track they’ll drive on this year.  And Schrader finally gets to race in a series  he helped create.

Former NASCAR champion Bobby Labonte will be going to Pevely after winning the last pavement race in the short-track series at Nashville.  Labonte, who is 58, is the oldest driver to win an SRX race. He started from the pole and led every lap in the final heat, holding off a serious challenge from INDYCAR driver Marco Andretti. Another former NASCAR champion, Matt Kenseth, was third and former INDYCAR driver Paul Tracy came home fourth. Four-time Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves was fifth.

Two-time INDYCAR series champion Josef Newgarden, a native of nearby Henderson, won the first heat while driving his first race in a car with fenders. Local track favorite Cole Williams won the second heat but was only 12th in the 13-car field in the final.

Newgarden spun on the 49th lap of the 75-lap final heat but rallied back to finish seventh. He called the race “a big learning session…just how these guys drive. They’re very rough.”  But he wants to do it again.

Labonte’s win has moved him ahead of Ryan Newman in the SRX points standings. Andretti’s runner-up also moves him ahead of Newman.

The series finishes up with two dirt-track races, the first being next Saturday night at Pevely, a track owned by veteran NASCAR driver Ken Schrader.  Schrader, who helped develop the cars used in the series, will compete in an SRX race for the first time—as the home track “guest” racer.

Pevely is about a half-hour south of St. Louis on I-55.

(NASCAR)—Chase Elliott is the first driver to pick up three wins this year, and number three has come at Atlanta Motor Speedway, his home track.  Elliott is from Dawsonville, about an hour’s drive south of Atlanta.

The win was in doubt as Elliott and Corey Lajoie battled for the lead through the first two turns of the last lap. But Lajoie hit the wall trying to pass Elliott on the backstretch as Elliott moved to block him and the race ended under caution with Elliott in front. Lajoie took his injured car home in 21st place.

Lajoie’s crash produced the last of thirteen caution flags.  A dozen drivers contributed 27 lead changes in the 260-lap race.

Ross Chastain, whose reputation as a driver often in the center of incidents, added to his credentials before finishing second, his fifth top-two finish of the year. He was collected in a nine car crash near the halfway point of the race then tangled, again, with Denny Hamlin when both were running in the top ten, leaving Hamlin with a badly damaged car that limped to the end 25th.

Daytona 500 winner Austin Cindric, the leading Rookie of the Year candidate, was third. Erik Jones and Ryan Blaney rounded out the top five.

Elliott’s win ups his regular season points lead to 47 over Blaney. Chastain runs third, fifty points back.

(INDYCAR)—INDYCAR’s next race is in Toronto next Sunday.

(FORMULA 1)—Ferrari’s Charles LeClerc had to deal with throttle issues and with challenges from Max Verstappen to win the Austrian Grand Prix.  It’s LeClerc’s first win since the Australian Grand Prix in April. He’s been dogged by mechanical and strategy problems since.

He beat Verstappen to the line by about 1.5 seconds to claim his first podium finish after five failures and move to within 38 points of Verstappen’s lead in the standings.

LeClerc and teammate Carlos Sainz were headed for a 1-2 finish before an engine failure sent Sainz’s car afire with fourteen laps left.

(Photo Credits: SRX and Rick Gevers)